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Confrontation

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins. Not through strength, but through persistence." − Anonymous

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Edward – Night after return home from Italy (New Moon)

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Bella is sleeping at last. The anger, sadness and sheer audacity of what happened not twenty-four hours ago still courses though me. If human, I imagine I'd be a shaking, quivering mess unable to function. Facing down the Volturi, realizing Bella was alive, almost committing suic …. leaving this world (I can't quite fathom what I almost did, my reckless actions, I can't help but shudder).

With everything fluttering so confusingly and painfully within me, I must run. The feelings inside of me demand to be released in some fashion. The vampire in me demands rich nourishing Human blood, but I choose to run. I hate to leave Bella now that we've been reunited, but I must run, run, run.

I look to Bella once more, making sure she's far in her slumber. Instinctively I jump soundlessly from Bella's window and allow my intuition to take over. The wind rushes over my chaotic skin, wiping away the erratic emotions. My eyes stings with the venom gathering in the corners of my eyes. The immensity of what happened today, of what could have taken place washes over me. I'm a quaking mess. Things could've ended badly, horrifically.

After what feels like hours of endless running, I come to my destination, knowing it was where I was heading for from the start. Even with the crushing darkness, I can see clearly. The moonlight bouncing off the lake reflects the blinding white of the light. It makes the water look like a mirror, eerily beautiful in its tranquility. The wind whistles through the huge pine trees surrounding the shores, causing little ripples to break the stillness on the surface of the water.

But even with all the staggering beauty around me, there's something even more beautiful, more exquisite sunken within the dark depths. It's an image that's familiar. It's an image that takes me back …. Back …. Back ….

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Her image takes me back to years ago, more than a hundred. Her submerged in water, blonde hair floating around her like a halo, expression more innocent than pure white snow, eyes staring endlessly into the past remembering things best forgotten, wearing a shirt that smells like me … a shirt that is mine. Sometimes, when witnessing her floating so unreservedly, I yearn for her, yearn to the point of physical pain, wanting to go back to a time when it was simpler.

But it is never that simple.

Her past memories race through her mind like an endless merry-go-round, making me all but dizzy. I know it's impossible for vampires to experience vertigo, but if anyone could make me feel the impossible, it's Rosalie. She's always had the effect on me.

Shaking myself from disastrous thoughts, I make my appearance know, being sure my steps towards her are unnecessarily loud. I see her flinch a little, but she continues to float in the water, looking like a haunting blurry photograph.

I knew you'd come, I hear whispered to me from the depths of her mind. The thought dashes around the endless memories of her past.

And she speaks the truth. I had to come; not only for an explanation for her actions regarding Bella and her telling me she died, but also something more visceral.

I wince from a particularly detailed memory from our shared past racing though Rosalie's mind. The girl always was comprehensive in everything she remembered, retained. Yet I don't want to relive that particular memory, one in which I was an asshole to her, making her feel terrible about herself. It's what Rosalie is expecting from me tonight; me being an inconsiderate asshole to her. The anger from her actions, my actions, and Bella's actions have led my mind in that direction. But for now I swallow the resentment, wanting answers and knowing anger won't really accomplish that.

It's not often Rosalie allows her shallow veneer to slip, allowing me a glimpse into her beautiful, meticulous mind. She claims it's for our sanity. Though I often agree with her, I miss the familiar patterns of her mind, the way she processes things, the way she sees things through a Rosalie-colored filter. Her mind has been so evocatively beautiful to me.

Being so near Rosalie, with her guard down, is bodily painful for me. I not only viscerally see what she's seeing, but I feel it to the core of my broken soul. It's a messed-up connection Rosalie and I share. Unknown how it formed but so intrinsically memorizing. All but debilitating if gone unchecked.

Not being able to take anymore of her self-recrimination or blasts-from-the-past, I lash out, needing to release some of these sinking emotions. "WHY?" I all but yell, wincing as the echo of my anger bounces off the mountains blanketing the lake.

My wanting to touch Rosalie – wanting to both strangle her and bury my hands in her blonde hair – keeps me from entering the lake myself.

Staying submerged in the safety of the water, she answers mentally, 'I don't know.'

Bullshit, I want to scream until my throat is raw, but refrain.

"You told me she was dead, Rosalie. Dead," I finish brokenly. Speaking the words aloud is enough to drive me to the brink.

The shifting of the water pulls me from the painful thoughts of my mind.

I'm momentarily stunned as I watch a vision, a true goddess in every sense of the word, emerge from the water. Rosalie's beauty always put me at a disadvantage. Even when human she was staggeringly beautiful. It would hurt to look at her, knowing the feelings and inappropriate thoughts she roused in me. It was never intentional on her part; it's what she inspired in most. I had even caught Saint Carlisle thinking of her wantonly once. Not that I ever called him out on it.

But even after all these years (all we've experienced together, all we decided to bury deep inside us) she can capture me and take me back to something best long forgotten – except inside my soul. It lives and breathes there.

Her wet blonde hair hangs enchantingly over covered shoulders. Though her face radiates beauty, I can also see the pain etched there, the sorrow and regret. It pulls painfully at my unbeaten heart.

My white button-down shirt clings to the dangerous curves of her body, moulding so enticingly. She smells of lake water, chamomiles, passion flower, and something even more forbidden … me. I can't help but wince from the combination. It's reminiscent of her earlier vampire years, before Emmett was even a thought in her mind. She'd put on one of my dress shirts, run to the lake of her choosing and willingly drown herself; wanting to erase everything bad from her mind and flesh.

Yet here she stands in the ankle deep water, biting her lip, looking at me haplessly from the underside of her wet lashes. If human, I know her heart would be beating wildly and tears would be coursing from violet-colored eyes.

"I'm sorry, Edward. Truly." Her docile, repentant words put me at a disadvantage. Though I'm still angry with her and what she put Bella through (what I put Bella through), I know she speaks the truth. Her exquisite mind speaks the truth so eloquently.

One word slips from my lips, "Why?"

Pain ripples through her thoughts and over her supple flesh. I have to bite my tongue from wanting to do wanton things. My wet, transparent shirt does little to hide her womanly body. She is a vision beyond description.

"… wrong of me." I pull from my lasciviousness and focus on what she's trying to explain. "Perhaps, I was simply jealous and glad that she was gone. She took the part of you belonging to me."

I feel both anger and sadness at her words. "Rosalie, please!"

Defiance flashes in her eyes. "No! I give up a lot of things, Edward. I play a lot of roles, wear a lot of masks. But some things I refuse to give up. Refuse to ever let go." Her hard, unrelenting eyes bore so deeply into mine.

The part of you which belongs to me … me …. me, I refuse to part with. The girl may have most of you, but she can't have mine. I refuse, Edward!"

And with that declaration, Rosalie breaks down. She falls onto the rocky shore of the lake and starts to sob. Gone is the defiant vampire, only to be replaced with a vulnerable one. It's a side of Rosalie Hale hardly anyone ever gets to see, one she keeps so deeply buried in the darkest recesses of her soul.

"I'm just so damn sorry. So damn sorry all the time. I mess up everything," she mumbles to the rippling water around her, pulling helplessly at her wet hair. She a vision of broken vampire.

There's only so much I can take, only so much distance I can keep when she's like this. And I know it isn't an act. She may be a lot of things, but one thing Rosalie doesn't allow herself to be is vulnerable.

With one step, I drop into the water, pick up my wilted, dying Rose and place her in my lap. It is so reminiscent of times past. A long time it's been since we've been this close; since we've touched. Something hot and intuitive rushes inside of me, filling the empty places of my soul with balm. It is something that only happens when we touch, when our skin and minds connect.

I sigh contently, roughly, shallowly as it all consumes me. I feel almost like soaring, as if my non-existing spirit will take flight at any moment, flying to the dark firmament watching from above.

"How could you try and kill yourself, Edward? How could you take what little I have of you away?" she mumbles into the side of my neck where her face is buried. Her breath feels so very right, so very warm on my flesh. My fingers bury inside her riotous hair, hanging onto the most tangible sanity I can find.

"How could I do that to you?" she continues. "So sorry, darling. So sorry. Such a failure, I am. Should have never said anything. Should have never allowed my jealously over the girl to drive me to do something so recklessly. Didn't want her to take you from me any longer. Life doesn't exist without, Edward. In whatever form I may have you. Whatever little part I may have of you, darling."

My eyes sting with venom during Rose's broken mumblings. Her truths pull away strips of my already tattered soul. I can only imagine how many of them must be littered around our fallen entwined frames.

Whether it be madness, reckless abandon, or just simply tired of hiding her part of me from Rosalie, I throw caution to the wind and allow my lips to fall upon her.

Nothing could ever explain what it feels like when my lips touch her. It's rough, it's harsh, it's beautiful, it's us complete. I may sound like the most inane sap that ever existed, but our lips touching is my depiction of heaven on earth. The feeling all but swallows me whole, taking away my identity and filling me with pure unadulterated, unmitigated emotions. If human, I'd be pulled apart from the inside out. It's a feeling only sustainable for a short time. Even for immortals.

While all but consuming my Rose I feel scared, unsettled, whole, unimaginable, complete, unhinged, scattered to and fro, unfettered, grounded in my Rose alone. I feel what I can only describe as free. It's every emotion bound into one word.

Allowing the freedom for a short while, I push Rose onto her back and cover her body with mine, allowing my wildness to cover us both. My hands are everywhere, needing to feel every part of her skin. And as the moonlight rejoices our short reunion, I let the madness abound in freedom. Our lips taste each other, our hands discover each other, our souls mingle with each other, our madness dances with beautiful abandon.

And for that short moment, that most unrestrained of times, we are both whole.

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Like all things magical, enchanting, it comes to an end and time marches on. The spell ends, the madness escapes and bleeds out, and rational takes over.

My need for Rosalie is never sated, but so deeply, deeply buried.

It's something I must do again.

Our time together, our confrontation is over.

The moonlight no longer celebrates our short union.

I must leave, return to Bella, and allow Rosalie to have my forgiveness. It's the least I could do for her … to her.

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Bella doesn't awake as I continue to rock. The rocking chair squeaks lightly as I go back and forth, painfully burying the memories of Rosalie once again. Is hurts so very much, but something that has to be done. When together we are nothing but madness, true wildness. Going unchecked I couldn't even imagine what we'd become. It scares me senselessly.

So with my attained iron-clad (something truly hard-fought) will, I push it all into the darkest places of my body. It's a piece of me that always physically aches, always begs to be released, always belongs to my Rose.

I watch as Bella starts to shift, calling my name, reaching out to me. I don't go to her. It's one of the only times I won't go to her, needing to bury my Rose once again. But I watch her, love her, wish better for her – my silly, beautiful, endearingly clumsy human.

As the last tethers of my Rose screams for me, begging not to be forgotten, I close it all in the darkness. The emptiness starts to overcome me again, burning my eyes and the lump in my throat with venom.

As I kissed my Rose's lips for the last time, silently pleading for her to forgive me, to love me continuously from afar, I drop my forehead to hers. My blurry eyes sought out her identical, slightly unhinged eyes.

"I forgive you, Rose," I whispered into her parted lips, still open from kisses. "Always, always, always, baby."

Tears clouded her eyes, knowing I was about to run … from her, from us, from unfettered freedom. It's the only way we know how to survive. I could never understand where our madness for each other ever came from or where it went, but we dealt with it. Survived it.

"Please forgive me in return." I dropped one kiss to her lips, one to her nose, one to her forehead, one each to the underside of her weeping eyes, one to the favorite corner of the left side of her lips, and one to her silent heart. With one last swipe of my tongue over her slightly exposed breast, I got up and started to run.

She had to survive.

"I love you, Rosalie."

It's the last thing I allowed her to hear before leaving my broken, wilted flower sobbing on the banks of her favorite lake.

I continue to rock back and forth, back and forth. The monotony calms my racing thoughts, my terrible anguish, my hallowed out soul, my emptiness.

"Edward," Bella calls out, always dreaming of her broken vampire. She's too good for me, something I've always known. But love her still, I do.

With one last breath, I exhale my Rosalie, putting her away. I rise from the chair and go to my human who's reaching out for me.

Forgive me, both of you. It's the last thought I have before touching Bella.

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Author's Notes: Though quite angst-y, I hope you liked it. This one-shot was a gift for my dear ladylibre. Thank you much for all you do. You're so sweet, supportive, and talented. Hope you enjoy your gift, hon.

If anyone feels so inclined, I'd love to know your thoughts. Hope all is well with everyone. And until next time, many hugs.

-SunnyOrange